Thursday 24 July 1662

Up early this morning sending the things to the carrier’s, and my boy, who goes to-day, though his mistress do not till next Monday.

All the morning at the office, Sir W. Batten being come to town last night. I hear, to my great content, that my Lord Sandwich is safe landed in France. Dined at our chamber, where W. Bowyer with us, and after much simple talk with him, I left him, and to my office, where all the afternoon busy till 9 at night, among other things improving my late experiment at Woolwich about hemp. So home and to bed.

"Sir W. Batten being come to town last night"Robert Gertz, Ha! the sudden return to town of Sir W. Batten was almost presaged (and is overshadowed) by your stunning fancy of the sudden return from Ireland yesterday of the other Sir W., unwitting (and likely unwilling) host of the Pepys family, sqatters.http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/07/23/#c33288

"much simple talk with [W. Bowyer]"I take it that "simple" here is not derogatory. but of the genre of "instances of the simple light discourse that sometimes is in the Parliament House" = slightly off-color humor, banter: see http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/05/07/

Sandwich's Safety:One wonders how much maneuvering went on at court with the rumors of Sandwich being lost. I wish Sam could've enlightened us on this. I would imagine his political enemies, as well as opportunists, were busy during the last few days of rumors jostling for position....

Speculation, perhaps, but I doubt whether serious re-positioning went very far. People were used to having to wait for news, both good and bad, to be confirmed in those days of slow and uncertain travel. It could be foolish and detrimental to a man's ambition to trust to rumour and reveal his hand too soon.

Robert's "Penn comes home" bit was fun but I liked his sinister dialogue of Creed and Shepley a few entries back even better.

"fudging" -I don't know but what you may be right, Robert. Still, Sam may just want to outline the trial carefully in a report. It's interesting the office seems to require such a formal presentation-didn't a number of the boys attend the hemp trials?

"Improving"I took this to mean that Sam was getting it right - typical of him.Since the first experiments, he has learnt more about rope and hemp and so redesigns his experiements in the light of his recently acquired knowledge. sam is every wanting to get to the bottom of things - to really know something!